President Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik today said though Maldives faces the dangers of climate change, the country would not be submerged in the Indian Ocean.

Speaking to Sri Lankan businessmen this morning during his current visit to Sri Lanka, President stressed that Maldives can be sustained through efforts to avert the dangers of climate change.

“First of all, I want give you a bit of good news. The good news is that the Maldives is not about to disappear,” President Waheed said countering the claims by his predecessor that the Maldives would be be completely submerged in the near future.

He added that foreign investors were concerned with the talks of a submerged Maldives.

Follow the money, find the lies. It was never about sea level, or climate refugees, or disappearing islands…it is all about wealth transfer. Whine loud enough to the U.N. that those other big meanie countries are making the sea rise, and they’ll toss money your way. Say it too much, and the investors stay away.

This reminds me of an interview I once saw with Michael Bloomberg. They were talking about climate change and how dire things could be and how very concerned he was about it. The interviewer made some statement about how New York City could be underwater by 2050. Bloomberg shot down that notion as fast as he could.

Atolls and other coral islands grow upwards at the rate of sea level change. So in a natural environment there is no danger of them becoming submerged. The parts that are (semi-) permanently above the water are composed of coral sand and rubble deposited by wind and wave action and will also move up as the water level rises. However, roads and other fixed infrastructures will not be allowed to be covered by the shifting sand and rubble, hence eventually people will have to move away from the habitable parts and migrate to the uncultivated islands where the natural processes have not been interfered with.

Well the whole damn place isn’t really that big, so I think there is a simple fix.

Shouldn’t be too difficult to put the whole thing up on stilts The touristy folks really like staying in tropical island huts up on stilts over the water anyhow. Well in places like Hong Kong, millions of people live right on the water in boats. Great for fishing; fresh out of the water into the frying pan.

Should work well in the Maldives-In-The-Air.

PS There’s actually land underneath the Maldives to put the stilts down onto.

Golfers with a severe hook or slice: do NOT bother to play that course.
(Wait up… they are going to need money to remedy golf ball pollution in the ocean near the course. They can still beg for more money. It’s all upside for them.)

Busloads of excited tourists disembark every day outside Tom’s Restaurant at 2880 Broadway in Manhattan. They have come to render homage to the greasy spoon of Seinfeld sitcom fame, and they are absolutely unaware of an infinitely more important program under way upstairs on the seventh floor. There, James E. Hansen, chief of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and adjunct professor of geological sciences at Columbia University, leads a team of scientists assessing the climatic-and possibly climactic-fate of this planet as it spins into the third millennium.

Aside from the receding threat of nuclear war, no issue is more vital than the one occupying Jim Hansen and his Goddard group: climate change, popularly known as the greenhouse effect, with its potentially devastating impacts on nature and civilization. At the current rate of global warming, and as envisioned by climatologists, life on earth is hurtling toward conditions never before experienced.

By the year 2050-only as far in the future, after all, as 1950 is in the past-the global temperature could be 3 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it is now. It has not been that hot for 200,000 years, a time well before modern humans evolved. By 2075 a 5-degree jump would make the planet its hottest in 4 million years, and by the end of the coming century the earth could be as hot as it was 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs disappeared.

Rapid heating on this scale will change the very face of the planet and cause chaos for the global environment, the economy, and politics. Glaciers will melt, and as seas heat and expand, the ocean will rise, drowning low-lying island nations and coastlines. Say sayonara to the Maldives, the Pacific atolls, Bangladesh, the Nile River delta, and much of the East and Gulf coasts of the United States. Tens of millions of people will be forced to move, and move again, in a kind of endless caravan, bearing conflict and disease. Adapted to specific climate zones, plants and animals will be hard pressed to move north; climate zones could shift 400 miles north by the end of the next century-far faster than trees and other plants spread after the retreat of the last glacier-and many species will become extinct. Old forests will burn, farmland will succumb to drought, and floods will increase.

Competition floating in for Lootah Hotel Management (Dubai) plans of US$85 million resort in conjunction with Maldive’s Kalaidhu Investment. Abdulla Saeed (Kalaidhu) : “We are pleased to be partnering with the pioneer of Islamic hospitality in the UAE….to work towards the development of universally recognised ‘Halal standards’ for Shari’ah-compliant hotels and resorts….”

It is not about the poor countries giving the wealthy islands the shake-down. It is about a certain group of imperialists coming out of the wealthy countries with an end-times disaster-to-be story, going to the leaders of the poor country, feeding the story, and feeding a solution that will get the leaders of the poor country wealthy.

If only the leaders buy in to the story.

the ingredient missing is: where will the money come from?

Here, the imperialists, who don’t mind toying with poor countries because that is just what imperialists do, coalesce the power of the poor countries and go to the host imperialist coutries of the imperialist international busy-bodies, and declare that a disaster is imminent unles the imperialist countries recognize guilt or nobless oblige, or voter sentiment, and are steered toward giving appropriate scales of money.

what is needed now?

all you need is the scare. and that needs to sound science-y.

global cap and trade was almost too good ot be true. there are other things in place to get the money moving from general funds of the wealthy imperialist countries to the poorcountries, without cap and trade.

the United Nations has an arm that helps countries invest in green stuff. this is part of where the money for the leaders comes in. the leaders of the poor coutries know where to invest.

^ there are all of the organizations and businesses around the globe who have declared that there will be plently of investment money looking for green investments.

this is not maldives being scared of a local threat and going to United Nations to ask for help. This is us sellling the maldives on a shake-down. The United Nations has a division that goes and teaches countries how to invest. just so long as they sign up to the cause.

Who is the investment fund manager for these green investment? Al Gore.

To summarize: the Prez of the Maldives did not come to Al Gore as a high-up American official.
Al Gore went to the Maldives and convinved their prez that the Maldives were about to sink, unless the Maldives prez joined the labor union, er, the poor countries that are being drowned by the big complanies.

These floating islands, are merely a Dutch Architect’s Fantasy, and do not exist beyound the drawing board, and artist’s photoshop rendering. We shall see whether, as the article claims, £320 million would even be enough to build the golf course, let alone constuct the “islands”. Bear in mind that a new golf course recently constructed on dry land in Scotland, by Donald Trump, is costing more than three times as much as that to build. No expensive floating island technology was required in Scotland we hear.

There is no comparison. Who will pay the Billions of pounds which are actually required to bring the Dutchmens fantasy to life. Which “shipyards” can build giant floating islands for less than the cost of a single freight carrier ship, a fraction of the size of these proposed “islands”? The numbers don’t add up for me. To put things in perspective, a Chinese built “Vale Class” Freighter which measures approx 360 Metres (Bow to Stern), by 65 Metres (Across the Beam), cost more that a Billion Pounds to construct. Whither now the £350 Million golf course in the Maldives?

Golfers with a severe hook or slice: do NOT bother to play that course.
(Wait up… they are going to need money to remedy golf ball pollution in the ocean near the course. They can still beg for more money. It’s all upside for them.)

Nah, they’re going to rely on all those golfballs to create a new foundation for fresh coral growth to increase the area of habital land.

@archonix says:
August 24, 2012 at 1:16 pm
Responding to H.R. says:
August 24, 2012 at 11:11 am
.
.“Nah, they’re going to rely on all those golfballs to create a new foundation for fresh coral growth to increase the area of habital land.”

The way I hit the ball, if I stayed and played for a week, the island would get an immediate 30cm boost from all the golfballs I’d lose. Maybe I should put in to the UN for funds to solve the Maldives’ sea level problem, eh? After all, it’s all “for the children”, doncha know.

This is what Anthony said in the told-you-so post: “Anything coming out of the mouths of Maldives officials related to climate, CO2, or sea level is pure bullshit.” Apparently he doesn’t feel this way any more. Why?

REPLY: Yes it still is, they seek money and investment, climate is just a tool. Your point?

gerrydorrian66 says – many things, but – amongst other things which I have little expertise in: –
“To put things in perspective, a Chinese built “Vale Class” Freighter which measures approx 360 Metres (Bow to Stern), by 65 Metres (Across the Beam), cost more that a Billion Pounds to construct”.
No.
Nothing like that.
Not a tenth of that!
Probably 110-120 million dollars – the Vale class are bulk carriers, and bulkers are really simple to build. Big silos, with an engine and a small [steel] apartment house, plus auxilliary machinery, pumps, winches, radars and so on. At about fifteen knots, they use about 40,000 horsepower, so a fair bit of cash goes on the diesel – engine.
And the fuel – a hundred tonnes/tons a day of HFO – the very bottom of the crack, not good enough to mend roads, but it still goes about $500-600 a tonne.
Better than a million dollars a month!
120 million dollars is about 75-80 million pounds [depending on exchange rate].
Shipping uses dollars, mostly.
Expensive – seriously expensive – ships include LNG carriers – up to 300 million or so, for a ‘Q-Max’ [about 250,000 cuic metres of liquid natural gas at -159 Celsius]; and passenger vessels – like the Costa Concordia which was over $500 million [double that for the biggest ones – at over 200,000 gross tonnes – a measure of volume, not weight].

Mind – the figures quoted for the Maldivian ‘islands’ are still very low indeed – even if a Burmese yard could do the job [No, it couldn’t,]
My guess – eight pods [each with three golf holes], so allowing six in use at any time and two refurbishing or dry-docking, each about 400m by 150 m by 20m deep, with minimal pumps – at $100 million each, so $800 million, plus two central islands [with the de-salination plants, clubhouses, etc [smaller but more complex, so similar costs] each at $100 million – so – broad brush, arm-waving figure – a billion dollars.
Oh Mohammed Nasheed a BSer? Yes, but a focussed guy. Knew him at college. Tolerably good publicist. How much do you hear about – say – the Marshall Islands? Tuvalu? The Grenadines?
And possibly more honest than his successor [who I do not know].

“The Greenstar, a star shaped floating convention hotel.
The Greenstar will blend-in naturally with the existing surrounding islands.
The green covered star-shape building symbolizes Maldivians innovative route to conquer climate change. This will become the no 1 location for conventions about climate change, water management and sustainability. A unique Floating Restaurant Island will be built next to it.”

Ha ha ha ha, for 350 million pounds ha ha ha, Try 20 times that. This is a huge con, none of it will ever be built, but 10s of millions will be wasted on feasibility studies and large corporate salaries. Lol, the number one location for conventions about climate change, water management and sustainability,

“History recalls how great the fall can be
While everybody’s sleeping, the boats put out to sea
Borne on the wings of time
It seemed the answers were so easy to find
“To late,” the prophets (profits) cry
The island’s sinking, let’s take to the sky”

Or, indeed, the golf course.

“Called the man a fool, stripped him of his pride
Everyone was laughing up until the day he died”

I will never visit the Maldives, even if it was the last habitable place on earth – the lying, cheating, weaseling bar stewards (the Maldives government that is – getting fatter on the UN donations) but the ordinary Maldives folk are probably still on the bread line………..shame, shame and double shame!

I wonder if this is the first official backoff on the Gaian credo? The first government official who openly says “We were wrong”?

Canada, of course, has backed off in a practical way by drastically cutting funds, but PM Harper is still paying lip service to the full theory. That’s the normal way: journalists and politicians never admit guilt even after they stop committing crimes.

Yes around a Billion Pounds for Ten Vale Class Carriers, that is correct, and lo they cost about 100 million pounds each. still as was remarked by others they’d need at least ten bulk carriers, worth steel & the size to float such an island complex. So yes it’s still a billion pounds and yet to build the superstucture on it. Of course the water in the centre lagoon of a coral atoll isn’t that deep, and so why do the islands need to “float” anyway.

Isn’t this a basic misunderstanding by the Dutch so called Architects as to what a coral atoll actually is, and how it evolves ??? remember that US congressman, who seriously thought that it could be possible to “capsize” a coral island, by putting too many buildings on the one side. He thought it was like a large floating raft….. those face-palm people !

Axel says:
August 24, 2012 at 1:11 pm
These floating islands, are merely a Dutch Architect’s Fantasy, and do not exist beyound the drawing board, and artist’s photoshop rendering. ……………
Who will pay the Billions of pounds which are actually required to bring the Dutchmens fantasy to life. Which “shipyards” can build giant floating islands for less than the cost of a single freight carrier ship, a fraction of the size of these proposed “islands”? The numbers don’t add up for me. To put things in perspective, a Chinese built “Vale Class” Freighter which measures approx 360 Metres (Bow to Stern), by 65 Metres (Across the Beam), cost more that a Billion Pounds to construct. Whither now the £350 Million golf course in the Maldives?

Axel,Hope Floats.!
So do ‘hot steamers’ in the swimming pool………

None of this is reality based. It is a classic con. Shake ‘em down (who ever is dumb enough to buy this con), get the money, and live fat off of the marks. It works for Green Peace, the Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, the Humane Society, and other classic cons. It will work for the Maldives.
MtK

Barbee says:
August 24, 2012 at 6:41 pmAnthony-you watched way too much SNL as a kid.
That being said, I’m sure NOBODY noticed that “Watts Up With That” is a rip-off of a skit on SNL (of a shockingly similar title.) . OOOPS!

For this price, the Maldivians will be fortunate to build a floating Mini-Putt.

Note to polistra August 24, 2012 at 5:54 pm

PM Harper has to play along with the leftist imbeciles that dominate Canadian politics in the more populous Eastern provinces.

These Pavlovian lefties are convinced that everyone who opposes global warming BS is a neo-Nazi, tobacco-chewing biker thug, financially supported by Big Oil.

The “Pavlovians” are typically educated in the liberal arts, work for the government, and are convinced that if everyone worked in a government job the economy would perk along just fine. They are oblivious to the fact that they produce nothing of tangible value for society.

Did anyone ever really believe that the Maldives Govt was concerned about climate change. Their response to the imminent danger posed by CO2 was to build an international airport to increase tourism. All that has now happened is that they have done the maths (math to our US friends) and worked out that they will get more money from gullible investors than agenda-driven supra-national aid agencies.
A shrewd business move but I hope they fall flat on their face between the stools.

Indeed, Axel. Meanwhile, the lunatics here in successive Scottish governments continue to peddle the same garbage:

“The Maldives face a very real threat from rising sea levels and I share President Nasheed’s ambition to prevent the environmental disaster and human rights catastrophe that would befall the islands should the world fail to tackle this problem.

“Scotland is a small country that is making a big difference on the global challenge of climate change through developing the technology and capacity – in renewables, in carbon capture, in energy efficiency measures – to reduce emissions and reduce the effects of global warming.

“Our Climate Change Act is the most ambitious in the industrialised world, committing to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 42 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80 per cent by 2050. Scotland also has 25 per cent of Europe’s offshore wind and tidal resources and 10 per cent of wave potential and the capacity make a significant difference in meeting universal climate change goals.

“The Scottish Government recognises that harnessing Scotland’s rich wind and marine resources and technological expertise can create thousands of green jobs and deliver significant environmental benefits for the wider world.

“The signing of this partnership agreement will see Scotland support President Nasheed and The Maldives to become the world’s first carbon neutral country and in turn create a greener, more sustainable future for our planet.”

“First of all, I want give you a bit of good news. The good news is that the Maldives is not about to disappear,” President Waheed said countering the claims by his predecessor that the Maldives would be be completely submerged in the near future.”

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but he is almost certainly wrong about that. Thanks to tectonic shifting, the Indian plate continues to smash into Asia (another Wicki) …

“The Indo-Australian plate is still moving at 67 mm per year, and over the next 10 million years it will travel about 1,500 km into Asia. About 20 mm per year of the India-Asia convergence is absorbed by thrusting along the Himalaya southern front. This leads to the Himalayas rising by about 5 mm per year, making them geologically active. The movement of the Indian plate into the Asian plate also makes this region seismically active, leading to earthquakes from time to time.”

To sum up, the Maldives are riding a slow but unstoppable freight train straight into the fires of hell underneath Asia where they will be summarily recycled as liquid hot magma and ejected at the nearest convenient volcano, their ashes scattered into the stratosphere. If they look real hard they might notice that the north ends of their islands are sinking just a tad faster then the south. They are gonna have to sue Alfred Wegener. I just wish they would sink faster. Buh Bye.

BTW, Steve Goddard found a nice old newspaper article discussing these islands back in 1837 …

“‘The natives observe the atolls to be wasting away; in some the cocoanut trees are standing in the water ; in another the black soil of the island is discernible at low water thirty feet from the beach; the southeast side of an island in Phaidee Pholo Atoll is entirely gone, but is marked by a banyan tree in the water. They say that some islands have disappeared entirely and instance near the island Wardoo a rocky shoal, which (they say) was once an island in Atoll-Milla-Dou. Some of the outer edges of the islands have fallen into the sea, which is fathomless in those parts. It is, however, acknowledged that reefs, have arisen from the water and gradually formed islands ; and the inhabitants of Male remember the outer edge of a circular reef in their harbour to have had two fathoms in the shoalest part, which is now dry at low water.'”

“What I don’t understand is how the Maldives (average elevation 5 feet) survived the tsunami.”

Probably has to do with the fact that tsunami’s start as very long waves with little height, that only get disastrous when they meet a coast line, where the little height and long wavelenght finally ruin the land it meets. The water just keeps on coming when it finally hits land, leading to a monster wave. The tsunami waves probably just passed the Maldives, with little effect, since most of the wave didn’t hit the land and the part that did could just flow mostly left and right of the isles.

That’s my thought. I could be very wrong. It makes sense to me though, given what I read about tsunamis in general.

“He added that foreign investors were concerned with the talks of a submerged Maldives.”

Here you have the law of unintended consequences at work. “Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!”

Daily Mail
“The course is part of a massive plan to replace the sinking islands with a network of man made, floating islands.”

Oh really?

AbstractThe dynamic response of reef islands to sea-level rise: Evidence from multi-decadal analysis of island change in the Central Pacific
…….This period of analysis corresponds with instrumental records that show a rate of sea-level rise of 2.0 mm yr− 1 in the Pacific. Results show that 86% of islands remained stable (43%) or increased in area (43%) over the timeframe of analysis……..

First, islands are geomorphologically persistent features on atoll reef platforms and can increase in island area despite sea-level change.

And finally, maybe someone knows where the building materials for the new golf course are going to come from? Why is the Maldives encouraging tourist to come in by plane thus worsening their previously alleged plight. There are lies, there are damned lies then there’s climate science BS.

Abstract
1. In the Maldives, coral mining for the construction industry has resulted in widespread degradation of shallow reef-flat areas. Due to the loss of these coastal resources and the associated problems of coastal erosion, there is an urgent need to find practical methods for rehabilitating mined reefs.

Abstract:Freshwater lenses on small coral islands are examples of shallow groundwater systems which are particularly vulnerable to seawater intrusion due to over-pumping. Freshwater lenses need to be properly assessed and well managed to provide a sustainable and safe water supply.

The problem is not rising sea levels (which has been going on for over 10,000 years now – currently flattening) but non-climate factors such as construction, water extraction and over fishing of beaked fish which assist is sediment growth.

Warmists, please read the following NON-PEER REVIEWED article, following on the heels of the IPCC’s use of non-peer reviewed mags. ;-)

In a related ocean news – plankton are doomed to a terrible death under acid oceans of the 21st century – not. ;-)

ABSTRACT: The atmospheric CO2 concentration is rising, and models predict that by the end of the century it will have increased to twice the amount seen at any given time during the last 15 million yr……………………………………………..
A major succession was seen during the 14 d, but no effects at all were found in pH treatments 8.0 and 7.7, whereas the extreme pH 6.3 clearly affected the community for all measured parameters. Thus, it is unlikely that the investigated plankton community would be significantly affected by a pH and CO2 change as predicted for the 21st century. This has previously been found for other coastal plankton assemblages as well, and we suggest that high pH resilience

“So you’re saying they are lying to these investors to get money? Which means they are telling the truth about sea level rise?

I’m am so confused.”

So you don’t find that the least bit interesting – that when they are looking for compensation from the West, the islands are doomed to sinking, yet when talking to nervous investors, the islands aren’t going to sink?

So the Maldives are more or less 5 feet above sea level. From a report on a British visit to the Maldives in 1835 where they stayed for a few months:

“…There are in the atoll where the Sultan resides, about fifty islands, none exceeding three miles in length, and one in breadth. In consequence of their lowness, not being in general more than five feet above the level of the sea,…”

President Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik today said though Maldives faces the dangers of climate change, the country would not be submerged in the Indian Ocean.
—————————
Here’s a chance for all you sceptic investors to get in on the ground floor.
You will not have much competition. After Rio+20 most big businesses have quietly accepted climate change and are adapting their investment strategies accordingly.
Even Exxonmobil has changed direction.